The cascade of events leading to bacterial infection and the immune response is mostly understood. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the immune response to the bacteria that causes tuberculosis ...

Highlighting a potential target in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer's disease, new research suggests that triggering a protein found on the surface of brain cells may help slow the progression ...

Researchers at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health identified distinct immune changes in patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, known medically as myalgic ...

Guided by the immune system, researchers have identified types of gut bacteria in young children in Malawi that are linked to nutritional health and that have diagnostic and therapeutic implications for childhood ...

In theory, a tumor is an army of clones, made up of many copies of the original cancerous cell. But tumor cells don't always act like duplicates, and their unpredictable behavior can create problems for treatment. ...

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that a compound produced by the body when dieting or fasting can block a part of the immune system involved in several inflammatory disorders such as type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, ...

Immune cells engineered to seek out and attack a type of deadly brain cancer were found to be both safe and effective at controlling tumor growth in mice that were treated with these modified cells, according to a study published ...

Antibodies that protect against H7N9 avian flu, which emerged in China in 2013 and sparked fears of a global pandemic, have been isolated in individuals who received seasonal flu vaccinations. These antibodies ...

New research shows that it is possible to predict the development of type 1 diabetes. By measuring the presence of autoantibodies in the blood, it is possible to detect whether the immune system has begun to break down the ...

Immunity (medical)

Immunity is a biological term that describes a state of having sufficient biological defenses to avoid infection, disease, or other unwanted biological invasion. Immunity involves both specific and non-specific components. The non-specific components act either as barriers or as eliminators of wide range of pathogens irrespective of antigenic specificity. Other components of the immune system adapt themselves to each new disease encountered and are able to generate pathogen-specific immunity.

Adaptive immunity is often sub-divided into two major types depending on how the immunity was introduced. Naturally acquired immunity occurs through contact with a disease causing agent, when the contact was not deliberate, whereas artificially acquired immunity develops only through deliberate actions such as vaccination. Both naturally and artificially acquired immunity can be further subdivided depending on whether immunity is induced in the host or passively transferred from a immune host. Passive immunity is acquired through transfer of antibodies or activated T-cells from an immune host, and is short lived, usually lasts only a few months, whereas active immunity is induced in the host itself by antigen, and lasts much longer, sometimes life-long. The diagram below summarizes these divisions of immunity.